Historic Cemetery Under Repair

WEISSPORT — A group of volunteers in Carbon County is attempting to fix a 250-year-old cemetery which has fallen into disrepair.

Volunteers are hard at work fixing up the Bunker Hill Cemetery in Weissport.

Parts of the graveyard are a mess. Tombstones have fallen over time. Other stones are piled up in a corner.

One grave site is more than 130 years old. The concrete over the grave is caved in. Some of the volunteers said there is some work that they cannot repair.

Volunteer Mike Schirra said he and others are working on sacred ground.

“These people laying below our feet built this country and these people, fathers, wives, grandmothers, grandfathers, every trade to railroaders to miners to laborers to bricklayers, and it’s a shame that history gets swept under the carpet.”

Volunteer Roy Christman knows those who have been laid to rest in the Bunker Hill Cemetery are those helped form America.

“At least one Revolutionary War soldier who is buried down there, Mister Weiss who is the founder of Weissport. He was, I believe, a colonel in the Revolutionary Army,” Christman said.

The cleanup is being sponsored by a union group called the Carbon County Labor Chapter.

Terry Whiteman, the chapter’s president said he sponsored the cleanup because it’s the right thing to do.

“This cemetery has been here for 250 years and it was probably maintained for 200, so we were hoping to preserve it for another 200 years. No one owns it. It’s titled unknown.”

The volunteers say there is a lot of work to be done. They expect to be at it through the summer.